Newsroom
Women secured a record 11 seats in Cyprus’ new Parliament following the 2026 legislative elections, marking the highest level of female representation in the country’s parliamentary history. Even with the increase, women still hold fewer than one in five seats in the 56-member House of Representatives.
The new Parliament includes 11 women and 45 men, compared with the 2021 legislature, which had 8 women and 48 men. Of the eight female MPs who sought re-election, six retained their seats, while five women won parliamentary positions for the first time.
Among those re-elected were DISY members Annita Demetriou, Savia Orphanidou and Fotini Tsiridou, AKEL’s Marina Nicolaou, and Christiana Erotokritou of DIKO. Irene Charalambidou also returned to Parliament after running with Alma. Charalambidou had continued serving as an independent MP after leaving AKEL’s parliamentary group earlier this year.
The five first-time female MPs are Nicoletta Constantinou of DISY, Argentoula Ioannou and Anastasia Hasikou of AKEL, Theodoulitsa Drousiotou of Alma, and Diana Constantinidou of Direct Democracy. Constantinou also became the first woman ever elected to Parliament from the Paphos district.
Party representation among women shifted in several cases. DISY maintained four female MPs, the same number it held after the 2021 elections. AKEL increased its female representation from one to three MPs, while DIKO continued with one woman in its parliamentary group. ELAM again failed to elect any women, although the party expanded its overall parliamentary presence from three seats to eight.
The newly formed Alma party elected two women and two men, while Direct Democracy entered Parliament with one woman and three men.
Two incumbent women who sought re-election were unsuccessful. Rita Superman of DISY lost her Kyrenia district seat, while Alexandra Attalides, who ran with Volt in Nicosia, also failed to secure re-election. Attalides had remained an independent MP after leaving the Ecologists’ Movement in 2023.
Election figures also showed an increase in the number of female candidates. A total of 753 candidacies were submitted for the May 24, 2026 parliamentary elections, including 224 women, representing 29.7% of all candidates. In 2021, women accounted for 160 of the 651 total candidacies, or 24.31%.
